Dissonance

“ what is it we send up thither, where our thoughts are either a dissonance or a sweetness and a grace? ”

“ Only by passing on and on, from chord to chord in ever-changing forms, from sweetest consonance to most brilliant dissonance, from exciting successions and combinations to calming ones, is harmonic texture provided for musical compositions. Sometimes, also, the melody remains unchanged when the harmonies are greatly altered, so that its expression may be varied, as the features of the same countenance may express varied emotions, and yet be always recognized. ”

“ The perpetual wranglings, ceaseless distractions, irreconcilable contradictions, disquieting doubts, discouraging outlooks, inharmonious and jangling opinions, unaccountable delusions, clashing and crashing dissonances, cruel hatreds, bitter enmities and stormful convulsions, which so largely enter and deface the course of human history, proceed mainly from his influence. ”

“ Spread discord and blighting, unspeakable woe,
Dissension and turmoil wherever you go!
Sow, jealousy, envy, and causeless distrust;
Tread confidence, honor, and manhood in dust;
Aye, bawl yourself hoarser than ear-splitting gongs
To whine of injustice and shriek about wrongs—
Let decency blush at the tatters and rags
Your madness has clothed them in, vilest of hags—
Strut, stagger and bluster across the broad stage
All foaming and frothing in wildest of rage—
Go, blasting sweet maidenhood’s vision of bliss
And pois’ning the lip of affection’s pure kiss. ”

“ By the equal distribution of the many kinds of apotomes, found on calculating intervals from the scale given by Nature's super-harmonics, they are subsequently practically disregarded—treated as non-existent—and thus elaborate modulatory harmonies are rendered comparatively easy to construct; and the human ear being less able to detect imperfections in dissonances than in consonances, composers have gradually employed, with increasing freedom, dissonances of the most unusual and startling kind. ”

“ The solid and highly-compound tones of the organ, sustained with equal energy, caused the imperfections of the concords to be markedly apparent. They could not be ignored, as when occurring with the evanescent tone of a piano-forte. The super-harmonics, or summation-tones, disagreeing with each other, developed, in common with difference-tones, a mass of attendant dissonances, which even the employment of a double foundation (sixteen-feet manual stops) and powerful pedal-organ, etc., could barely hide. ”

“ But I did feel that if at that moment any of those faults had been brought before me which sometimes occur among us; had I heard that any of you had been guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or of any other such sin; had I heard from any quarter the language of profaneness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had I heard or seen any signs of that wretched folly which courts the laugh of fools by affecting not to dread evil and not to care for good, then the unsuitableness of any of these things with the scene I had just quitted would indeed have been most intensely painful. And why? ”

“ A word, a look, nay the very appearance of a slight, throws me into the greatest uneasiness and confusion; and though I can govern my temper enough to hide it from the world, my heart is ready to burst with indignation. ”

“ Her ear was almost stunned with the deafening clamor of debate, of applause, of execrations, which now in dying murmurs, and again in thundering reverberations, awakening responsive echoes along the thronged streets, swelled upon the night air. Of all human sounds, the uproar of a countless multitude of maddened human voices is the most awful. ”

“ Or is it we who make the fancied gloom, by looking at it through the paltry, broken, stained fragments of our own interests and prejudices? Were we fools then, or are we dishonest now? Or was the impulse of the mind less likely to be true and sound when it arose from high thought and warm feeling, than afterwards, when it was warped and debased by the example, the vices, and follies of the world? ”

“ That is to say, you never hear a word uttered but in a rage, either just ready to burst, or for the most part, explosive instantly: everybody—man, woman, or child—roaring out their incontinent, foolish, infinitely contemptible opinions and wills, on every smallest occasion, with flashing eyes, hoarsely shrieking and wasted voices,—insane hope to drag by vociferation whatever they would have, out of man and God. ”

“ A voice was snarling in his ear, snarling vicious oaths, snarling in a fury that seemed ungovernable, beyond all license, that seemed to have taken possession of the other, body and soul, and made the other’s strength demoniacal. ”

“ Not, it is true, when the evil passions or evil deeds held their tyrannical sway over us, but when the spell was gone, when the mind’s eye grew clear, and the hour of reflection came with sorrow, and the sad pale light spread over the hand-writing on the wall, from which conscience might shrink but could not fail to read. ”

“ You have set your heart and face against society, when you thought it wrong, and returned it frown for frown. Excellent: now can you afford to forget it, reckoning all your action no more than the passing of your hand through the air, or a little breath of your mouth? ”

“ So profound, then, even in a psychological point of view, and apart from the multiplied phases which the moral aspect presents, appears the discord which reigns in our whole mind as at present constituted! Dissension seems to be interwoven into its fundamental fabric. Instead, therefore, of saying the human consciousness is fourfold, with equal, if not with greater correctness, we might and ought to say, it is divided, or, rather, split, into four or more pieces. ”

“ So almost universal is this foul talk, to be heard everywhere, at any time,—ribald, coarse, obscene, and altogether devilish,—that it is no wonder that the public mind is debauched and totally demoralized. ”

“ The deep angry remonstrant eyes, the shaggy eyebrows, telling tales of frequent anger,—of anger frequent but generally silent,—the repressed indignation of the habitual frown, the long nose and large powerful mouth, the deep furrows on the cheek, and the general look of thought and suffering, all combined to make the appearance of the man remarkable, and to describe to the beholders at once his true character. ”

“ The speeches before us are to the subject what a veil is to a lady's face, or a blind to a window. Almost all that has been said or written upon it is a palpable delusion—an attempt to speak out and say nothing; to oppose something that might be done, and propose something that cannot be done ”

“ A heavy, slow tread could be heard now and then, and now and then groans, and now and then words of protest and anger, bitter reproach, tremulous entreaty, fierce invective, and passionate lamentation. ”

“ Ask Sing Sing what the hot tempers, the fires of uncontrolled anger, of jealous rage, of revenge, of hate, of all the explosive passions have done. Ask the poorhouses, the insane asylums, the morgues, ask the records of human wreckage everywhere, what the fruits of uncontrolled passions of every sort are.
Anger, whatever its cause, is temporary insanity. Are you in the habit of losing your temper, of flying into a rage over trifles? ”

“ Howbeit, if their tongues who are angry be once rough, foul, and running dissolutely at random to absurd speeches, it casteth forth outrageous and contumelious language, the very mother and work-mistress of irreconcilable enmity, and bewrayeth an hidden and secret maliciousness. ”

“ Why should a stern, condemning voice declare in recesses of my soul, 'You could and should resist'? For years I have been daily yielding to temptation, and conscience as often pronounces sentence against me. ”

“ For the greater part of that time I could expatiate on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny; in a word, upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and the disturbers of human society. ”

“ Why, then, O men, do you weep, why do you sigh, when perchance you have to bear with injurious words? Think diligently what opposition I suffered from sinners against myself, that you may not be wearied, and grow fainthearted. ”

“ Hearts may grow sick with hope deferred, Be crushed with black despair, But lips, too proud to own defeat, Will whisper, "I don't care!" A thoughtless friend flings out in jest— As jesters always do— A deadly shaft you wince beneath, You know the story's true ”

“ I ask you for an answer.
'None? Still dumb? I'll show you something of the other side. If you are resolute to shut your ears to our cries, and your eyes to our misery, we'll crucify you again. Don't think that those police outside will help you, or anything of that sort, because you'll be nursing a delusion. You'll be crucified by a world in arms. When it is known that with a word you can dry the tears that are in men's eyes, and yet refuse to utter it--when that is generally known, it will be sufficient. ”

“ For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. ”

“ Thus the dogma of the fall is not simply the expression of a special and transitory state of human reason and morality: it is the spontaneous confession, in symbolic phrase, of this fact as astonishing as it is indestructible, the culpability, the inclination to evil, of our race. Curse upon me a sinner! cries on every hand and in every tongue the conscience of the human race. ”

“ Had you been in a philosophizing mood, had your heart or your reason been at home, you might have been convinced, by ocular demonstration, that madness is only the absence of reason.—The ruling angel leaving its seat, wild anarchy ensues. ”

“ Whether the result of ignorance, or dullness, or bad temper, of national or religious prejudices, or of mere personal pique, they have boldly challenged the ridicule of the world, and its amused contempt has pilloried them for all time. ”

“ Difference of manner may go for a great deal, but beyond and below the resentment caused by a prompt, decisive, and perhaps imperious tone, lies a deeply-rooted sense of wrong—logically or illogically arrived at. ”

“ They are so easily deceived by appearances! Do you know, that of late I have thought there was a great deal of confusion in the ordinary way of men's thinking? But I see clearly the cause of the errors into which they are perpetually falling. All the discord arises from having wills of their own. ”

“ We have sunk so low now that we try to act our exaggerations, and to live up to our lies. We call it "keeping up appearances;" and no more bitter phrase could, perhaps, have been invented to describe our childish folly. ”

“ I detest that idiotic phrase "while of unsound mind". I am as sound in mind as any man living, but because I end an unbearable state of affairs, and take the only step I can think of as likely to give me peace—I shall be written down mad. ”

“ Confusion and discord revealing some added cares as threaded together by the symbols as previously shown, and from the note-book of the young man. The hated lame man of letters having rudely flustrated the game of their lives, yet he was just, though believed to be the cruel enemy, from the broken, wavy lines and cutting things about him, then facing towards them. Mental reason, or impressment plying its parts as touching these mingled, and confusion atmospheres, proving that all things affect us, consciously or otherwise, relating to life. ”

“ You have been brought up on clumsy falsehoods and your darkened mind feeds on the works of darkness. You deceive and are deceived with delightful thoroughness, and you, too, have your racial hatreds, your cruel prejudices and your contempt for the unfortunate. ”

“ I hear among men so much vain speech, so much precious breath and precious time wasted in empty boasts, foolish anger, useless reiteration, blatant argument, ignoble mouthings, that I have learned to deem speech a curse, laid on man to weaken and envenom all his undertakings. ”

“ He was fond of speaking ill, diligent to sow dissension, and from the constant bent of his thought, had obtained that sort of readiness for slander or reproach, which is esteemed wit by the light opinion of some, who take the remarks of ill-nature, for an understanding of mankind, and the abrupt lashes of rudeness for the spirit of expression. ”

“ Often the fierceness of his temper, the righteous indignation that swelled his bosom, impelled him to hurl defiance at his foes, and to use language, the possible consequences of which, caused the more timid and abject of his followers, to tremble with apprehension. ”

“ They debate, they dispute, they wrangle, they explode—then nerves are relieved, and they are ready to begin over again. Quit the home and quarrelling is less obvious, but it goes on all about one. What proportion of the letters delivered any morning would be found to be written in displeasure, in petulance, in wrath? ”

“ PROLOGUE TO THE COMEDY OF 'A WORD TO THE WISE,' SPOKEN BY MR HULL. This night presents a play which public rage,
Or right, or wrong, once hooted from the stage;
From zeal or malice now no more we dread,
For English vengeance wars not with the dead.
A generous foe regards with pitying eye
The man whom Fate has laid—where all must lie.
To Wit, reviving from its author's dust,
Be kind, ye judges! or at least be just. ”

“ Discreet and reticent as we have all been, and careful in our criticisms of so bizarre an event, there still must be many to question the reality of such superstitious fears, and some to ask if such a sound could be without human agency, and a very guilty agency, too. ”

“ The infernals breathe into the angry mind or the loose mind the thought of themselves, and prove their presence in the speaker's heart, by inciting the utterance of their own wicked names from his lips. ”

“ You will laugh till probably tears of sorrowing pity fill your eyes at their constant exposition of their own lack of it. They began all things unreasonably—a round of absurdities and impossibilities for the abasement of the defenceless half of human kind, in the unreasonable imagining that they thereby exalted the other half; and to carry out their unreason they made their god unreasonable! ”